


A Child's Scream

by shcherbatskayas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Death, Death Row, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Sociopathy, Not Canon Compliant, Physical Abuse, Prison, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:27:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shcherbatskayas/pseuds/shcherbatskayas
Summary: Monaca, the future, and her place in it.





	A Child's Scream

**Author's Note:**

> Three things! 
> 
> 1\. Go up. Read the warnings. Read them again. If you think any of that is going to trigger you or really upset you or if it's just not what you're about, backspace the fuck out of here. Seriously this is the one time I didn't tag a meme go do it.
> 
> 2\. This is an au where there was the Despair and the first two killing games, but no Future Foundation killing game. Thus, Miaya, Sakakura, etc. are alive and well here. 
> 
> 3\. This isn't what I originally planned for this fic AT ALL. I might write one more compliant with my orginal plan depending on how this does. If you'd be interested in that, let me know!
> 
> Thanks for reading all of that and please enjoy! Enjoy might be the wrong word there but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The siege on Towa Tower lasted for nearly two months and later, Monaca would admit to the fact that she was rather proud to have drawn it out for so long. Considering the combatants were a twelve-year-old girl with some robots and a military force of about two hundred, she believed she had a right to be. It finally ended on a rainy day in the middle of April, the sort of day that Monaca would have liked to nap straight through if she could. 

She woke up on that Tuesday and had one of her new robots make her a cup of hot chocolate. After getting rid of the Servant, Monaca spent months making improved Monokumas to do domestic work. They cooked and cleaned and killed all of the bug that she was too scared to approach and never rambled about hope or despair or Junko, but she still missed Nagito anyhow. She liked to think it was because they were less fun to annoy and they never put enough marshmallows in her hot chocolate. 

The thing was, when her robot left to go down one floor to get the mugs, it didn’t come back. Monaca knew that the Future Foundation had been closing in and had actually been inside the building for two weeks, but she had no idea that they had made it to just one floor beneath her. The idea that they were so close allowed her to feel something other than bored: curious. What would they do with her? Who would come up to take her? How long would that fight last? If she could take a whole city for two years and a whole block for six months and a whole skyscraper for two months, how long could she make one floor last? One room? One foot of that room? It could take a month just as easily as it could take a minute. It would just depend on how much effort that Monaca put into it. 

Later, she would debate if the fact that she didn’t spend that morning making battle plans and robots as proof that she wanted to get caught. But it could have just as easily been that nothing had happened when they got into the lobby of Towa Tower and nothing had happened as the Future Foundation crept upwards, so it seemed unlikely that there wouldn’t be another day to prepare. All she knew was that her reaction was to spend the morning playing video games and occasionally glancing over at her various traps. Monaca had ones that were designed to kill soldiers and ones that were designed to kill her. There was the bomb that would make her Playstation explode if someone stepped on a specific section of a floor tile nine floors down, there was the desk drawer that would release gas throughout the whole building if opened, and there was the little trap door that would open if she flicked a lever on the floor that would send Monaca plummeting seventy stories down. The only thing that kept her from activating any of these earlier was that she didn’t want to die in Towa City, but it started to look like she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. 

The sounds of both fictional and real gunfire filled the building until Monaca grew bored of playing video games. She paced around for a few minutes, ordering Monokumas to go downstairs just to see if they would come back up. They never did, but that was alright with her. After a few minutes, Monaca got winded and sat back down, trying to ignore the pain in her stomach. Her food supplies had been dwindling for a while until they were entirely shut off two weeks ago by the Future Foundation’s siege. Since then, she was only sustained by the coffee machine on the 69th floor, which she normally had a bot use to make her hot chocolate instead. Now there was nothing. Monaca briefly considered the very real possibility that she would die of starvation before being captured and wondered how much despair that would cause, but the idea of despair wasn’t amusing anymore. There was so much despair and awfulness that it became boring, but she considered it out of habit, in the same way she kept making designs for a children’s paradise and kept making more Monokumas. She did it because it was what she had always done, not because she particularly wanted to. 

Just as Monaca was about to debate designing a better tank (She typically liked to design improved versions of what the Future Foundation used if only because their technology was so bad that she _had_ to), she heard the sound of footsteps. They weren’t the mechanical sound of a soldier's boots or the frantic clicking of an office worker’s dress shoes, but the soft sound of sneakers on tile. It made her think of elementary school, of homeroom with Kotoko and Masaru and Jataro and Nagisa and the laughs they would share over cookies and homework. Out of curiosity, Monaca turned around and saw Komaru Naegi, looking beautiful and tired and strangely happy to see her. Even though Monaca knew it would be easier to just go with her, more interesting to go with her, generally better to go along with Komaru and let the Future Foundation take her and see how that went, it is the instinct of all hunted things to escape capture. Monaca was no exception and she got up, scrambling over to her trap door and then taking a deep breath. What would the rain feel like on a seventy story plunge? Would it hurt?

“Monaca,” Komaru began, stepping towards her. She didn’t doubt that Komaru was going to say something hopeful and stupid and _predictable_ and was going to be horrified when she plunged to her death. Monaca was glad that at least she wouldn’t have to see the dull despair on her face when she was falling to her death. At least she wouldn’t have to see something so boring ever again. 

With a canary-eating grin, Monaca went to activate the lever with her foot. However, she was so thin and frail and stupidly weak that she only managed to nudge it half of an inch and trip, which caused her to fall forwards and promptly hit her head off the floor before passing out. 

***

Monaca wasn’t awake when Komaru carried her downstairs and out of the building. She wasn’t awake to hear the cheers of weary soldiers and see the curious gazes of the ex-Warriors of Hope. She had no idea that Masaru refused to even look at her or that Kotoko looked at her in the same way that most people look at roadkill or that Jataro no longer wore his mask or that Nagisa was oddly worried about her Mary Janes, which were half off of her feet and threatened to drop to the ground with any sudden movement. He was tempted to properly reattach them to her feet, but decided against it. 

She was still out of it for the ambulance ride to the nearest hospital, where they determined that she was concussed and malnourished and closer to respiratory failure than the doctors approved of. They gave her ice packs and a feeding tube and an oxygen mask before sending her off to the hospital right by the Future Foundation’s headquarters. 

Monaca came to in that hospital. She opened her eyes and tried to sit up, only to be stopped by the handcuffs attaching her to the bed. She wiggled her wrist a bit, just to test how flexible the hold was and managed to do nothing but get herself a new bruise. The Future Foundation didn’t give her much leeway. Then she moved on to investigating the maze of IVs and tubes she was attached to, trying to figure out which ones did what. It was only then that she cared to look at the nurse in the room with her. The face was familiar, as if she had seen it in some long ago dream. Monaca squinted at the woman, attempting to put a name to the nurse with dark hair and bright gray eyes. 

“Oh! You're awake!” The nurse exclaimed, and it was then that Monaca remembered. It was hard to recognize her with a pixie cut instead of the uneven strands of hair that she used to hide behind, but it was Mikan Tsumiki. Junko had shown Monaca pictures of her and laughed about how easily manipulated she was. Maybe Monaca could work a little magic and get Mikan to help her out. 

“Mhmm.” Monaca confirmed, pouting at the handcuffs before looking back to Mikan. “Why do I have these on? They hurt.” 

“You’re in Future Foundation custody. The security guards insisted.” She said apologetically, smoothing back Monaca’s hair. “I’ll see if I can talk to them about it, maybe I can get them to loosen them up for you so they don’t hurt as bad.”

“Thank you, Miss.” Monaca gave her the smile she had rehearsed for so many occasions, the sweet smile of an innocent girl who had done nothing wrong. It was a Junko smile, and Monaca hoped it would work here. She knew that she should’ve been happy to be in this situation because it was new and certainly fraught with despair, but her gut instinct was to try and get out as soon as possible. 

“It’s no problem.” Mikan spent the next twenty minutes darting around the room, checking monitors and adjusting pillows and giving vitamins. Once all of that was done, Mikan sat down in a chair by the bed. 

“Do you know what I’ve been charged with, Miss?” She asked, snuggling into the nest of pillows Mikan had created around her. 

“Terrorism, murder, accessory to the creation of Despair, kidnapping, and evading arrest.” Mikan said softly, her eyes filling up with tears. “You know...You know, Junko said that we’d raise you together. That you’d be like our own daughter. Monaca Enoshima. I always hoped--always thought that maybe--prayed that maybe she told the truth about--”

Mikan collapsed into sobs after that and promptly left the room, leaving Monaca to sit there under the watchful eyes of guards who would’ve liked to rip out each piece of tubing and then beat her to death with them. She smiled under their harsh gaze if only because she knew that manipulating them was impossible and that she very well couldn’t let them see her upset. It also meant that she couldn’t process what happened, that her plan to die before capture had failed because she was too weak to pull a lever and that she was amazingly and ridiculously dumb and was now in the custody of the Future Foundation. Part of her wanted to blame it on the Servant’s bad luck rubbing off on her, but she hadn’t seen him in over a year. It was no one’s fault but her own that she ended up here. That’s what everyone would say, anyways, and that was all that mattered. 

***

In the three days Monaca spent stuck in that hospital, she had a variety of visitors. Other than Mikan and the ever changing faces of the guards, the first new face she saw was the Servant. His hair was shorter than she remembered and he had an air of someone who was perfectly content with life and in a relatively stable spot. Seeing him so put together was possibly the most disturbing thing she had ever seen.

“Servant.” She said, trying to muster that superior tone she had always used with him. It was hard to sound righteous while handcuffed to a bed, but Monaca managed. 

“It’s Nagito now.” He told her, smiling and sitting down in a chair next to the bed. “You’ve grown a bit, Monaca. Komaru said that you were only a few inches shorter than her. I remember when you barely came up to her elbows.”

“I guess I have. You’ve grown, too. You don’t look like you’re a member of a screamo band from the nineties anymore.” Monaca shifted in the bed, trying to find a position where she couldn’t feel the strain of handcuffs. 

Nagito chuckled at that, shaking his head. “That wasn’t my best look, was it?” 

“Not really, but the chain was useful. You should consider bringing that back.” Monaca told him, remembering how the day before she kicked him out, she had grabbed the chain and kissed him because Junko had kissed him all the time, so therefore she figured that it was the key to being able to actually feel the despair Junko loved so much. He laughed in her face and then cried for three hours while she chased him around and threw Nagisa’s old set of encyclopedias at him. The next day, she grabbed Nagito by that chain and threw him over the border of her territory and told him to walk. He didn’t come back after that. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s against Future Foundation dress code.” Nagito shrugged and then placed a hand on the bed. “Has Mikan told you what you’re charged with?”

“Mhmm. I’m not sure how they’ll prove all of that, but…” Monaca imitated his shrug exactly, which caused him to laugh. 

“I’m sorry.” He said after his laughing fit. “About everything. You don’t have to forgive me, but I thought you should know.”

“I forgive you.” She said, not because she necessarily felt one way or the other about what he had done but because she figured that not forgiving him would come back to bite her in the ass if he turned on her completely. “I...I’m not sure if I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I ought to be sorry about.” 

“It’s not my place to tell you that.” Nagito told her, rifling through his pockets before pulling out a piece of paper. “But it is my place to give you this. My card. Apparently I’m important enough to have one now. If any of the guards or anyone else does something...I trust that you can find your way to a phone. Just call me. And remember, liars can always spot liars.” He smiled and placed the card on top of the pile of her clothes, which sat in a basket in the corner while she was stuck in hospital gowns. With a quick wave, he walked out and then Monaca was alone again. 

Her next visitor was Kanon Nakajima. She watched with mild interest as the guards patted her down. Kanon glared at her through the glass the entire time, right up until the guards found a knife hidden in her big fur coat and sent her away. After Kanon was Hagakure, who wasn’t there to visit Monaca but retrieve Kanon’s knife and give it back to her. He looked at her through the glass and then scurried away, too scared to even look her in the eye. Monaca couldn’t help but giggle at that fact. 

After Hagakure were the Warriors of Hope. They weren’t there to see her and didn’t even look at her, but Monaca saw them. She saw Kotoko bickering with Masaru about something, half of a smile on her face as she gestured wildly with her hands. Monaca could hear Masaru laughing. His voice was half an octave deeper than she remembered. Jataro walked right behind them, holding a present covered in farm-themed wrapping paper. Monaca had never seen him without a mask until that moment, but she knew it was him. Nagisa was next to him, his hands in his pockets as he occasionally added commentary to Masaru and Kotoko’s debate. They looked normal. Happy. Peaceful. Monaca would’ve given anything, would’ve given _everything_ , to be there with them. At that moment, she wanted to walk with them and giggle as her friends bickered. She wanted to give Jataro a compliment on his choice of wrapping paper, she wanted to curl Kotoko’s hair around her fingers and giving Masaru a playful kick in the shins and exchange dumb lovey-dovey glances with Nagisa and more than any of that, Monaca wanted to do those things and actually mean them. 

Nagito stopped by a few more times, telling her all about the trial that was going to take place. Monaca complained loudly about being unable to testify on her own behalf because they thought she would incriminate herself and complained even more when she found out her jury would be the Future Foundation leaders. It felt comfortable to rant to Komaeda, who simply gave her his enigmatic smile and tried to reassure her. During his last visit, he enthusiastically told her all about Makoto Naegi, who would be one of the people speaking in her defense. She wrinkled her nose at the mention of him and kept referring to him as “dumb egg man with bad hair who killed your ex-girlfriend and my big sister” until Komaeda was frustrated enough to leave. 

The last visitors were, in Monaca’s humble opinion, the worst visitors. A tall man who wore a bright white suit was followed by a sour fellow with dark green hair.

“Your friend should invest in some highlights.” Monaca declared, taking away his right to speak first. “Shamrock green is all the rage these days.” 

The man in the suit rolled his eyes at her statement and his companion cracked his knuckles before drawing the blinds and backhanding Monaca across the face hard enough that her neck cracked.

“Don’t you dare say anything like that again. Got it? Don’t ever compare me to someone like you.” The stranger held her by the collar of her hospital gown and Monaca nodded. He would be fun to play with, and Monaca knew she had to play with him. He wouldn’t be satisfied until she did. 

“Monaca would never compare you to her! You see, Monaca doesn’t think you’re like her at all! Monaca thinks your friend is, though~” She said, adopting the third-person speech and cutesy face from the days when she could feel a little bit of something.

The stranger looked ready to hit her again, but he was cut off by a short, clipped call of “Sakakura.” He instantly let go of Monaca and took three steps back, a sneer still evident on his face. 

“Who’re you?” Monaca asked, turning towards the other and giving him the most charming smile she could muster. 

“Kyosuke Munakata, current acting president of the Future Foundation. I am to oversee your safe transfer to Future Foundation headquarters, where you will be kept until the conclusion of your trial.” He said, his voice stiff and formal and empty of anything she could call life. Her fate rested in his hands and Monaca knew at that moment, she was utterly doomed. He had the same unwavering determination to getting rid of despair that Monaca once had to causing it, and so she knew the utter uselessness of trying to get past it. The things people like them clung, nothing-people with voids where a heart should be, they would’ve burnt down the world for what filled that hole. They would’ve killed for it. They would’ve died for it. Junko had proven that. Monaca could only hope that Munakata grew bored of the whole set up before her trial, the rigid hope vs. despair ideology that caused everything in the first place, but she knew he wouldn’t.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Monaca said pleasantly, staring her death right in the face and giving it the brightest smile she had. Pride refused to let her express her fear. “Monaca Towa, current acting hospital prisoner. If you take off these handcuffs, I would be more than happy to shake your hand.” 

“Not a chance.” Sakakura said from his corner. Monaca stuck her tongue out at him, briefly feeling amused by the way color rose to his face before feeling fear wash over her again. It wasn’t even proper despair, the kind she used to relish in. Horror wasn’t fun anymore. Maybe it never had been.

“Sakakura, you can commence with the exchange now.” Munalata said, checking his watch. “I have a meeting with Mitarai in half an hour.” 

“Got it.” Sakakura approached Monaca’s bed and undid her handcuffs. He communicated with her in short, angry commands of “Get up” and “Go here” and “Change into this” and “Put your hands behind your back” and “Get moving.” Defying these orders would only serve to get her hit again, which she wisely decided to avoid. After five minutes, Monaca was dressed in her old clothes with Komaeda’s card in her pocket and a new pair of handcuffs on her wrist. 

The odd trio quickly made their way through the empty hospital hallways, passing Mikan on their way out. Monaca didn’t miss the way Munakata refused to look at her or the fact that Sakakura pushed Monaca forward as soon as Mikan came into sight. 

Monaca was shoved into an armoured car and ended up smushed between two guards. The silence was deafening and reminded her so much of her old home that she was tempted to scream. Luckily, the ride lasted all of three minutes and the Future Foundation headquarters was bustling with activity. She caught snippets of conversation and ended up in an elevator with a girl decked in pink and fur, her knife wielding boyfriend, a drunk man in a fedora, and an actual literal farmer. None of them acknowledged her or her guards, but that didn’t stop Monaca from feeling the familiar sensation of amusement as they bickered among themselves. She almost asked the girl for a piece of the candy she occasionally gave to her boyfriend, but Sakakura stepped on her foot any time Monaca opened her mouth. As soon as they left, the amusement disappeared. 

The cell Monaca was sentenced to was seven floors below the ground. The others on the floor were empty, so there was no one for her to antagonize or befriend as she waited for however long it would take for her trial to begin. A tired guard opened a cell and shoved her inside, snickering when she hit the floor face-first. Sakakura undid her handcuffs and then locked the cell before barking orders at his men. He then left with Munakata, whispering about something she didn’t care to hear.

For a second, there was peace as Monaca examined her new surroundings. There was a bed with no sheets, a toilet, a sink, and a singular light bulb that lit the cell. Just as she was about to relax, a guard opened the cell door, truncheon in hand. 

There was no peace after that.

***

It took Monaca six hours to find a phone, but it was probably some of the worst six hours of her life and she had yet to actually find a way to get to it. The first problem that stood in her way was the guards. It took her less than thirty seconds to figure out that they very angry at her. Not because she had personally killed any of their friends and relatives, but because Monaca had become something of a symbol in her few years as Despair and it was easier to hate her than to hate the collection of unknown people who had fallen under Junko’s influence. While she was focusing on not passing out and trying to get away from the various hands that were trying to grab her and hit her and keep her in one place, she was able to find a guard who kept a cell phone in his pocket. She remembered his face and his name, and now only had to find a way to get to it.

The second obstacle was that there was no privacy in her little cell. Even if Monaca did get the phone, there was always a guard with his eyes on her. There was no way to call Komaeda in peace and even if she did reach him, the third obstacle was that he might not even answer or come for her. He had seemed stable, sure, but Monaca didn’t quite buy that he was suddenly a functional human being and even if he was, it wouldn’t be impossible for the Future Foundation to get into his brain and convince him that helping her was a horrible idea. 

The guards eventually got bored and tired and so they just let Monaca be. She laid down on her new bed, which was profoundly uncomfortable and didn’t even deserve the title, and started to plan. After a good nap, the cleaning of her blood-stained clothes, and some more thought, Monaca had a proper idea. According to her calculations, it must have been three in the morning when she came up with it. She spent the next two days not sleeping and instead watched the guard changes in silence. By the time she had the shifts memorized, she moved onto the number on the card. It didn’t take long to memorize and soon enough, Monaca could recite it without even thinking. 

Shift change was in process when Monaca began her plan. The guards were talking about something banal and boring, like cigarettes or their wives or whatever they were going to do that weekend. She got up and walked to the edge of her cell, one hand around the bars and the other raised in a wave. “Hello! I’m Monaca. Monaca Towa. What are your names?”

None of the guards answered her and Monaca pouted, pretending like this was awful. “Oh no! None of you want to talk to Monaca? Well, that’s alright. Monaca knows your names anyways.” She giggled, placing her free hand over her mouth and watching for their reactions. 

“Shut up.” One of them barked at her and Monaca giggled again, resting her head against the bars. 

“Bu Monaca doesn’t _want_ to shut up. Monaca is _bored_. And she doesn’t think that telling Monaca to shut up is very smart. You see, Monaca knows a lot about you, Mr. Suzuki! She knows your address and your wife’s name--Kyoto, right?--and the names of your children and--”

It didn’t take long for the guard to unlock the cell and start throwing her around, screaming insults and exactly what he would do to her if she dared to threaten his family again. The others joined and soon enough, the guard’s phone fell from his pocket. Monaca managed to kick it under her bed and every time she hid under it to play pretend at avoiding them, she was able to sneak in a few digits. A one here, a six there, a few nines right in a row, and soon enough, she pressed the button to call the number. 

The first few rings were drowned out by the sound of flesh hitting flesh, but nothing could drown out the friendly, calm voice of Nagito Komaeda’s inbox message. It was all very professional and the guards looked around in confusion. Before they found out the source of the noise, there was the beep signaling it was time to leave a message and Monaca _shrieked_. It was a desperate, high pitched noise that was disturbing only because it was genuine. The phone was discovered, the call was ended, and Monaca was hit again and again and again. The end result was a broken wrist and a myriad of bruises, but she was okay with that. Certainly, Nagito was coming to fix this and then serve her as always.

Except he didn’t. 

Monaca didn’t know if it was because he thought she was lying, if he didn’t check his voicemail, if his requests got caught up in layers of bureaucracy, or if he just didn’t want to help her, but she was still in her basement cell by the end of the week. She grew bored of the routine, of trying to aggravate or befriend the guards, of the rotting food and the darkness and the disgusting smell of unwashed clothes. More than she wanted freedom, Monaca wanted a shower and a nice nurse to patch up her wrist. 

“Did my trial start?” She asked every day, and every day, she didn’t receive an answer. No visitors came for her, no saviors descended the elevator to come get her, not even Munakata or Sakakura came down to check on things. Monaca wondered if they had already decided to let her rot and just hadn’t told her. That seemed increasingly likely until the ninth day when a strange assortment of people arrived. Munakata exited the elevator first with Sakakura right on his heels. After them was a person she recognized as Izuru Kamukura. Izuru looked so drastically different that Monaca figured that he must have reverted back to his original personality, but the red eyes and confident stance revealed him for who he really was. 

“Monaca Towa,” Munakata began. “A council of the Future Foundation’s top leaders has decided on your sentance.”

Foolishly, Monaca was filled with hope. Maybe they pardoned her and would let her live like the other ex-Despairs. Maybe they would let her go to general prison. Maybe they would exile her to some far off island where she could go on a million adventures. The possibilities were endless and she genuinely smiled as she waited to hear his answer. 

“You will be executed for your crimes on June first by electric chair. We’ll be moving you to death row. Sakakura.” Kyosuke made a gesture with his hand and Sakakura opened the cell. Monaca was too shocked to cry and instead just stared at him, trying to comprehend what he just said. 

“Her wrist is broken. We should fix that before we do anything else.” Not-Izuru suggested, his voice not cold and calculating like she always knew it. 

Munakata sighed at that suggestion and Sakakura grumbled, but he let him through. 

“You’re not Izuru.” Monaca said poutily, holding out her wrist and looking away from him. 

“Technically, I am. But I’m mostly Hajime now.” He explained as he put her wrist in a splint, trying to be as gentle as possible. 

“That’s stupid. Izuru was cool. He was like, a cyborg.” She said, crying out in pain as her wrist was forced back into place. 

Hajime just shook his head at that statement, watching carefully as Sakakura put her in a new pair of handcuffs before shoving her towards the elevator. 

“I thought you were all supposed to be the heroes.” Monaca complained, wiping her eyes with the back of her good hand. “I thought you were supposed to be about hope and second chances and all of that shit. I guess you’re really just about murder and ugly pantsuits.” 

“You can’t manipulate me, Towa.” Munakata said, half scolding and half warning her. “It’s too late to change your sentence now. There’s no use in pulling any tricks.”

Monaca huffed at that, frowning at the buttons in the elevator. She debated trying to break free, but there was nowhere for her to go and no one waiting for her on the other side. It would be as useless as trying to con Munakata into changing his mind. 

***

All things considered, death row was probably the nicest place Monaca had been in years. It was on the third highest floor in the building and it was a proper room with a nice bed and shelves and a window. Her attempts to jump from the window taught her that it was locked at all times and even just opening it would cause alarms to go off. She was on suicide watch, which was more annoying than it was traumatizing, but that meant that she got to see someone at least every half an hour. She would stay up to wait for them and talk the ear off of whatever unfortunate orderly was stuck with the task of making sure she hadn’t hung herself with the bedsheets. Usually, she sent them away crying, sometimes out of the cruelty of what she said or the kindness of what she did. It was the best way to pass the time.

Then there were the therapy sessions. Monaca thought they were a waste of time, but it meant keeping Miaya in her room for a whole hour, so she dealt with them. Miaya was the only person she couldn’t make cry, which was beyond frustrating. She tried _everything_ , from throwing tantrums to insults to her sad life story, but Miaya was unbreakable and always willing to listen. Miaya also prescribed her pills to help with the list of things she was diagnosed with, which Monaca would sometimes refuse to take to see if that would get her mad, but she would be exasperated at best and attempt to talk her into it through her computer. 

“Why don’t you actually talk? I might listen to you if you actually talked.” Monaca pried, testing to see if maybe her voice was the soft spot that would bring her to tears. 

“I can’t.” Her voice program said. “My vocal cords got torn out by Monokumas years ago. Besides, I never liked my voice much. This is much more convenient, in the end.”

“Leave it to you to find a bright side to getting your vocal cords ripped out. Jesus. _Therapists_!” Monaca rolled her eyes and then went off on a tangent about how dumb therapists were, to which Miaya nodded along. Monaca quickly decided that she was the most infuriating woman on earth, and she absolutely loved her for it. 

Sometimes, a lackey would come in with some paper and a pencil. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were trying to get her to design robots for them with the month she had left to live. Monaca designed intricate robots that could’ve saved the world and every time she finished one, she would wave the paper in their face before tearing it up and shoving the pieces in her mouth. Sometimes she swallowed them, which was somewhat disgusting. More often than not, she would spit them in the face of the one who brought her the materials. That was even more disgusting, but it was much more satisfying. 

Every morning, Chisa Yukizome would come with a tray of breakfast for her. Every afternoon, a Remnant of Despair would come up with her lunch, and dinner was always provided by various Future Foundation heads. They would sit with her as she ate and try to coax confessions out of Monaca. How did she do all of it? Who did she kill? Who did she kidnap? What happened to all of them? Why did she do it? How had she felt then? How did she feel now? It didn’t take long to realize that they wanted some sort of justification for sentencing her to death. They wanted to reassure themselves that they had done the right thing. Monaca answered honestly, but she was unsure if her answers gave them the clarity of mind that they wanted. She was unsure if they deserved it. 

***

The day that Monaca Towa was to die, she woke up with a pounding headache and a dry mouth. Her last meal request had been enough alcohol to drink herself into unconsciousness and a bowl of gummy bears, but without the white ones because they always tasted a little bit like cough medicine. After throwing up the last of her last meal and washing her face, Monaca got dressed. There was no prison uniform for her and they had brought some of her clothes that she kept in Towa Tower, so she had a fair amount of options. She spent a long time choosing between all of the dresses but settled on a black one that she liked because the skirt would billow out around her when she spun in a circle. The guards arrived when Monaca was pulling on her tights and waited impatiently as she finished that and put on her shoes. 

“Do you really have to put the handcuffs on me? It’s not like I could very well escape now.” She complained as a guard put on handcuffs and leg irons and then pat her down to make sure she wasn’t somehow hiding any weapons on her. Apparently, they really did.

Juzo Sakakura arrived, leaning against the doorframe and glaring as he watched the spectacle. She supposed he was charged with making sure it all went properly, which was so funny to her that Monaca couldn’t help but laugh. 

The electric chair was set up six floors below the ground, right above where she had stayed before she received her sentence. The elevator ride down was long and Monaca rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Would this be what death was like? Eyes closed on some long descent to nowhere with a silence so thick that it felt like the air had turned to lead? Monaca didn’t know if there was an afterlife, she didn’t think that there was, but her last true wish was that if there was one that it would be nothing like this. 

The walk from the elevator to the room where she would die was a long one. Monaca took her sweet time and today, no one seemed to feel the need to rush her or shove her forwards. There were no windows this far down, no light except for the artificial light bulbs that flickered if she looked at them too long. One of them went out during her walk and she spent a long time just staring at the space where light once was before forcing herself forwards. 

Monaca watched a guard open the door to the room where she would die and she took a deep breath as she examined it. There was the chair set up in the middle of the room with a long wire attached to it. The wire went through the wall and presumably attached to a generator. There was a viewing area right in front of the chair and Monaca tried to look from the corners of her eyes to see who had come to watch her die as they went through the process of removing all of her chains. The row of people closest to the glass contained Munakata, Komaeda, Hajime, and Miaya. There was an empty chair on Munakata’s right, which Monaca deduced was for Sakakura. Behind them were the ex-Warriors of Hope, Komaru (who seemed desperately trying to convince them to leave; Monaca couldn’t hear them through the glass, so she didn’t know for sure), and Touko. The third row was reserved for reporters that she had never seen before and would never see again. A microphone hung from Monaca’s side of the room, which allowed them to hear her but forbade her from hearing them. That was for the best, really. She doubted her ability to keep composed if she knew what they were saying. 

Once all of her chains were removed, Monaca was led to the chair. It was a giant thing that she had to almost jump to get on. It felt almost like a throne and she smiled pleasantly at those assembled behind the glass. No fear. She could show no fear. The fear that was eating her alive had to remain hidden. It was a self-preservation instinct and that instinct refused to let her display any emotion except for perfect calm. 

A guard removed Monaca’s shoes, cut a hole in her tights, and attached an electrode to her right foot. They went to strap in her legs after that, but there was a small issue: the straps were too loose. She was too small for her limbs to be properly restrained. It took twenty agonising minutes for the guards to cut another hole in every strap and then close them around every limb. While they did this, Monaca listened to their conversations. They talked about everything but her, choosing to instead talk about what they would get for lunch and where they would go on their break and what they wanted to do that night. The world would go on without her and that simple fact made Monaca want to weep. Instead, she just kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind Nagisa’s head. It was a nice wall, a pretty light blue color that almost blended perfectly with his hair. There was a small crack where it met the ceiling and she made a note to die without mentioning it to them so that it would eventually become giant and destroy the whole ceiling, but they would probably catch it before then. Still, the idea that they wouldn’t was comforting.

The headband with most of the electrodes was finally attached to her head. It looked almost like a crown and Monaca closed her eyes for half a second, playing pretend that she was a princess, that this was her crown and she was sitting on her throne and these people in the room with her were her subjects and she had all of the power here. Then Monaca opened her eyes and she remembered the truth of things. A guard held out the bag that they were going to put on over her head and Monaca shook her head at it. 

“Don’t put that thing on me.” She demanded, not even looking at it. The guard went to put it on her anyways and Monaca tried to squirm away until she saw someone open the door to the observation room and exit. Nagisa stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. 

“She had a right to refuse to be blindfolded. Section Thirty-Six of the Fifteenth Article for the Rights of Prisoners of the Future Foundation.” He said coldly. “I have a copy in my house if you would like me to go get it and prove it to you.”

“No need to do that. Keep the bag off of her.” Sakakura ordered, sneering at Shingetsu. 

“Thanks, Nagisa.” Monaca said, tilting her head and giving him the smile she used to always give him, the one that used to turn him into a blushing, embarrassed, happy mess. It barely seemed to faze him now. 

Nagisa returned to the viewing area and sat back down, fielding off questions from Kotoko and Masaru with a simple shake of the head. 

“Do you have any last words?” Juzo asked her and Monaca searched her brain for something to say. She knew that she ought to have said something about how good the despair felt, but it didn’t feel good. It made her want to vomit. There was no pleasure along with it. She had no use for apologies now, not to people who couldn’t be helped by them. Monaca still couldn’t figure out if she was sorry about what she did, what that would feel like and how she would know and how she would deal with that. She had been too stubborn to ask Miaya and too lazy to analyze Miaya’s words (few as they were) for an answer. The only thing she could think about now was that she was being watched, that every action would be recorded and picked apart. There was no action that wouldn’t be twisted to fit some agenda or some portrayal of her. 

“No. There’s nothing I have to say that’d be heard, anyways.” She shrugged in her chair and then smiled again as everyone left the room. Monaca fought the childish instinct to close her eyes and instead kept her gaze right where it had always been, on the blue of the wall. What would electrocution be like? She read about the process of going into the chair, but no description had ever told her what she would feel. No description ever said how much it would hurt. 

Juzo Sakakura entered the viewing room and the various guards made it into the room where the generator was. Monaca briefly turned her gaze to Juzo to see if he would give the signal, but she couldn’t bear to look anyone directly in the face and quickly looked away. Seconds after that, he gave an imperceptible nod to Munakata, who sent a message to the guards in the other room to pull the lever. 

***

Monaca Towa was used to pain. For large sections of her life, there had always been someone who felt the need to hit her, and hit her hard. None of that compared to the pain of electrocution. The current traveled through her body, singeing the skin around the electrodes and turning it black, and then bright red the further away it got from the center. The smell of burning skin permeated the air along with gratuitous amounts of smoke. She heard the sound of someone screaming. Monaca was fairly certain it was her. She struggled to get away from the cause of her pain, but there was no way to get away from it, there was no way out of the predicament she was trapped in. The struggle caused her to twist her ankles until she heard a sickening snap. The electrode on her foot fell off in the mad struggle, hitting the floor with little fanfare. Every organ felt like it was set on fire, every inch of skin and bone and blood felt like it was burning her. Technically speaking, it was. After a minute, the current stopped and left Monaca sitting in the chair, burnt and bruised and breathing. 

She didn’t register that she was alive at first. Surely that killed her. Surely they used enough to kill her, but the room was the same and Monaca was coughing. The dead don’t cough. The dead don’t feel pain. They had used just enough to not kill her outright. Monaca didn’t know if it was a purposeful act or a genuine miscalculation. She didn’t know if it mattered. 

The smoke eventually cleared enough that she could see into the viewing room. Sakakura and Munakata were looking right at her, eyes just a little too wide for them to be bored by the situation. Komaeda’s eyes were glistening and he looked like he was holding his breath. His mouth was twisted into a smile or a grimace. Hajime’s brows were furrowed in concern and something like horror, making him look nothing like Izuru. Miaya had her scarf pulled up almost to the level of her eyes and was gripping the edges of it hard enough that her knuckles turned white. Behind her way Touko, who was hiding her face in Komaru’s shoulder. Komaru had one arm around her and the other arm around brave, brave Masaru, who was watching the whole spectacle through his fingers. Next to him was Jataro, who was once so macabre and now had his hands over his mouth and looked positively green. Kotoko was on his other side and was looking at Monaca with something akin to pity, not with the hatred disguised as worship that she used to. And then there was Nagisa, who was always so composed and calm. He was leaning over and shouting something at Munakata, shouting loudly enough that she could hear his voice. Behind him, the reporters were scribbling furiously on their notepads. 

Thirty seconds. That was how long it took for them to notice that Monaca was still breathing and that the electrode on her foot had fallen off in her struggle. It was Nagito who got up and opened the door to the chamber. He wasn’t running but instead moving at his normal pace. Upon seeing him, Monaca’s face lit up. 

“Servant! Serva--Nagito! Nagito please, please just shoot me, just fucking _shoot me_ , please don’t let them do that again, please, please, please do it! I said please, so you have to do it! That’s the rules! If someone says please, you do it! Shoot me! Shoot me! God, just shoot me!” Her desperate shrieks filled the chamber and tears dripped down Monaca’s face. Nagito got down on one knee and carefully reattached the electrode before kissing the skin around it. She didn’t know if he did that to try and stop the pain or make it worse. 

“Oh, Monaca,” He said sweetly. “If I had a gun, I’d have shot you a long time ago.” 

With that, he was gone and Monaca was left alone again. She tried to force herself to sit up and smile and show no fear, but the tears were still falling and she could still smell her flesh burning and she just couldn’t do it. 

Then there was the signal to start it all again.

And then there was the movement of a lever.  
Once that was done, there was the flow of electricity from a generator to a chair. 

And then there was a child’s scream. 

And after that, nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> One day I'll write a fic where I don't kill Monaca, pinkie promise. Just...not today.


End file.
